In the Darkness
by SabineLaGrande
Summary: True prognosticators do not appear every day.


True prognosticators do not appear every day.  
  
They do not even appear every year, even in the wizarding world. Granted, there is no shortage of diviners, charlatans, overly dramatic squibs, and forecasters of every degree, colour, class, and rank. However, true natural ability is worth more than diamonds.  
  
But every once in a while, you get lucky.  
  
There were once four friends who started a little school. Being equitable as they were, they divided the school evenly, each student assigned by his or her own strengths. But they needed a judge. It had to be fair.  
  
In a tiny little village, an old man made hats. He made exceedingly fine hats. And every hat had much of him in it. Each wizard that cared for one of his hats- for you could never really own them- always carried a little bit of the old man's wisdom with them.  
  
The man lived a long, full, happy life. Finally, he knew his time was over. He had one last hat to make. Into this hat, he poured all of his wisdom, all of his experience, all of himself. Then he was gone.  
  
It was a fine, fine hat. By a happy chance, the details of which are long and lost, it came unto one Godric Gryffindor. The friends had their judge.  
  
They cast their most powerful spells upon it, meaning to bewitch it. Unbeknownst to them, this was no ordinary hat. They did not bewitch it. They merely woke the old man inside it and gave him back his voice.  
  
So everyone was happy, for a time. Then the friends, as humans are wont to do, fell out. It was only a matter of time. The school grew and changed. Darkness came upon it, then rescinded. There was death and uncertainty, tears and laughter. Only the hat remained. To be sure, it was ever vigilant, for it was more a part of the school than any mortal could ever be. It became the school's one true guardian.  
  
A thousand years and more passed. Then something strange happened.  
  
True prognosticators do not appear every day. Yet there came to be at the little school, which was not quite so little anymore, two such extraordinary people.  
  
Divination is a gift which few possess. It is also a very difficult one to control, even for the most advanced of wizards. It cannot be exploited every day. So when a girl was found who had the Sight, even at the most spastic of intervals, the world rejoiced.  
  
She came to the little school when she spoke of the great darkness and its end. The hat, resting dusty on his shelf rather by preference than from neglect, felt a feeling it had not felt in many long years- the feeling, at long last, of kinship.  
  
And Sibyll felt it too, though she was not as wise as the hat and could not understand it at first. Yet she was drawn. She wandered into the Headmaster's office one afternoon almost by accident. Finding him gone, she wandered reverently around the light circular room.  
  
He woke and cleared his throat. She jumped back, startled.  
  
"I. I'm sorry-" she stammered before he cut her off.  
  
"That's perfectly all right," he said soothingly, twisting the soft fabric of his mouth into a little used smile. Few words passed between them. They didn't need to.  
  
They were inseparable after that inauspicious beginning. She would carry him gently down to the lake, where they would sit for hours, alternately talking and silently staring into each other's eyes. Better still, she would take him into the quiet smoky dark of her chambers and put him on her head. He would whisper softly into her ears as she opened all her thoughts to him.  
  
Then the darkness came again. The boy, the boy from the prophecy, the boy they had both inwardly sworn to protect, came to the school. And though it was the last thing they wanted, they knew they had to part. They had to be ready to help him whenever, wherever, no distractions.  
  
No words passed between them. Sibyll merely took the hat back to the Headmaster's office, kissed it softly on the brim, and walked out. She did not turn back, and she barely even cried.  
  
As for the hat, he was far wiser than she. True prognosticators do not appear every day. Rarely, if ever, do they find love, but when they do, no plot of Muggle or wizard can ever despoil or end it. He knew the time would come when the darkness would once again flee. When they were no longer needed and could be cast aside again, at last they could be together forever.  
  
So they wait silently, not needing talk. And one day, they will be together. 


End file.
